PROTESTANTISM VS. ROMAN CATHOLICISM.
By Editor
The Christian Advocate of November 1 quotes from a paper read by Rev. Walter Elliott, of the Roman Catholic Church, before the Parliament of Religions, on "The Missionary Outlook in the United States." The Signs has twice quoted from the same article, but it gives the following again in order to give point to what the Advocate says. Father Elliott states the matter as follows:— The collapse of dogmatic Protestantism is our opportunity. Denominations and "creeds" and "schools" and "confessions" are going to pieces before our eyes. Great men built them, and little men can abolish them. The dogmas of older Protestantism are fading out of our people’s minds, or are being thrust out. Everything shows that this is the case. He concludes:— There can be little doubt that this republic will be made Catholic if we love its people as God would have us. Upon this the Advocate remarks:— Mice have destroyed the nets which chained lions, and insects great buildings. What of Methodists as here described? Every sentence of the foregoing is worthy of study, and should be weighed by Protestants. The same Father Elliott has been for some months holding revival meetings, or "missions," among Protestants, notably in Ohio, and the Catholic News reports great success and interest at all of these missions. It states that they are largely attended by Protestants, and that many Protestants are converted to the church in this way. There certainly is this manifested in the Catholic Church—it is883consistent. Protestantism has much to say about the Bible, and the Bible alone, but for many of its practices it holds to doctrines of the Catholic Church which have no Bible whatever for their support. This is clearly seen by those who reason consistently, and the only logical conclusion to which they can come is that if these doctrines and practices are right, therefore the Roman Catholic Church must be right, the Reformation was a mistake, and the only proper thing to do is to go back to the bosom of the mother church. Either this holds good or the word of God alone must be accepted by Protestantism.